Hi All--After a very long string of relatively young plants, today's variety is one that has been in our garden since 1994. Blue Umbrellas has been a very reliable, if unspectacular, plant. It spent the first 5 or 6 years happily growing in a location where it got several hours of afternoon sun. Since 2000 it has been in a spot that gets no direct sun, and it seems to be happy there, too. As a mature plant, it's size is quite stable, but goes through normal year to year changes. Starting in 2001 it has measured 44x24, 48x26, 49x23, 54x24, 62x26, and 53x26. I don't expect it to ever reach the 72x33 size that Zilis attributes to it. During most of the years I have had BU, it has had no slug damage because of its great substance. The couple of damaged leaves in the photo are from a fallen branch. The photo is from this year.

Pic of the Day--Blue Umbrellas

Very Nice Hank. There are so many hosta, and so little time.........Have you ever said just how many 'named' varieties you have in your beautiful gardens? They seem to go on for ever. Very nice indeed!

Jane--I'm not sure but I think it is about 350. I also have quite a few of my own sports and seedlings. One of these days I will probably do a POTD series of some of those. Only a few are really worth showing to others.

I'd like to see those also! I have several 'un-named' and several seedlings that are special to me, but probably no once else either, except those that have been where I'm at in gardening so please do share them! I'll be looking forward to it!

I have always loved Blue Umbrellas. I have two of them that now sit on either side of Sum and Substance. I dug one of them up from my deck bed and moved it last year. Here's a couple earlier pics. I love the dark leaves (it got lots of shade in these pics) and the substance of the leaves.

BlueUmbrellas.7.23.04.jpg

BlueUmbrellasLeaf7.23.04.jpg

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